Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I begin by offering my congratulations again to our colleagues, Senator Doherty, and my good friend, Senator Boylan. I also commend Senators Blaney and Chambers. From my experience, it was a really enjoyable campaign and very worthwhile in terms of a good life experience.

The first issue I wish to raise is the appalling but really powerful documentary by “RTÉ Investigates" in respect of Shannonside Foods. Anyone who watched the documentary could not have been but absolutely shocked by the type of practices that were going on there. The documentary does beg a number of questions. I remind everyone that we saw horses being repeatedly hit, whipped, punched around the head and struck with long lengths of plastic piping. One horse was seen falling and being too weak to stand, to be later prodded with a pitchfork. That horse died after hours of struggle and was seen being dragged out of a shed the next day. Why were the veterinary officers from the Department of agriculture who were working on site not aware of the barbaric cruelty that was going on? It is hard to believe that they would not have been aware to some degree. Why was the adjoining lairage shed not included in the abattoir's licence to operate? Crucially, "RTÉ Investigates" had informed the Department one month in advance of the documentary being broadcast. Why did the Minister wait to take action until after the documentary was broadcast? He had that information for a month at that point. The remaining horses should have been seized and removed from their despicable abusers - the owners. We do not even know whether the horses were checked by vets before their removal from the Straffan facility. We do not know where those horses are at this time or why they are still under the control of the owners who, let us not forget, have a track record of criminality when it comes to abuse of animals. I hope the Acting Leader will agree with me that we need a debate on this issue. We need to have a real investigation into how these practices have been allowed to go on for so long. It would be really important, on an all-party basis, for Senators to support my call for a debate and see what else we can do to help the situation.

The second issue I wish to raise concerns the following. I welcome the fact that we have a new employment regulation order for the security industry. Under the new order, the rate of pay has increased from €12.90 an hour to €14.50 an hour. That is a reasonable move but is not good enough in terms of a rate of pay. It has taken months of negotiation by SIPTU to get the increase across the line as the employers dragged their feet on a number of occasions. These are the people who stand in front of emergency departments at hospitals at weekends and nights, enduring all sorts of abuse. It is really tough work, yet they are paid €14.50 an hour. Frankly, we should pay them an awful lot more. Of course I would argue that those jobs should never have been outsourced to a private security company.These people should be employed by the hospital. However, the key point is that last week at the count centre in Cork, I discovered that Top Security has won the award for minding our ballots. Top Security is a company that has shown flagrant disregard for trade unions and has taken court orders against our employment regulation order. How can it be that companies that have total disregard for trade unions win public contracts to mind our electoral process? Surely to God, we need to look at our procurement policy. I call for an urgent debate on that. Workers should be represented and respected and so should their trade unions.